THRIVE Un-tapping the dormant potential of an organisation’s human capital © Sherman Hill Consulting Ltd June 2014.

THRIVEUn-tapping the dormant potential of an organisation’s

human capital

© Sherman Hill Consulting Ltd June 2014

Just as we are beginning to wake up to the impact humans are having on our environment; we are now beginning to

reconsider work and its impact on people and our society.

‘Work’ – a form of Roman torture

We have come along way from using work as a form of torture, but I can’t help feeling that for far too many it feels that way!

Since the Industrial Revolution we have made work a scientific experiment: time and motion, hierarchy, performance management, processes, TQ, frameworks, six sigma, CI, policies, mandates, objectives (the list is endless) all with the intention of increasing productivity and profits. All of these elements have a valid place in today’s organisations, but when times are tough and the organisation needs to continue to compete, they are simply not enough.

The truth is, since 2008 many organisations have been struggling to compete and have found that spouting clichés like ‘more for less’ and ‘smarter not harder’, and exerting even more pressure on the workforce don’t work.

It doesn’t have to be like this! At anytime in an organisation’s life the all too often missing element is the focus on ‘humanity’ and my mission is to ‘put humanity back to work’ so that people thrive, businesses win and our society benefits.

Organisation’s are full of nice ordinary people, who do terrible things to each other, all with good intention. 

Kevin Purcell (Power and System)

Humans are ‘meaning making machines’

Firstly, lets’ be clear on what you manage! You do not manage; performance, results, operations, projects, teams etc – you manage people. To be even more precise, you manage their energy. The energy that moves them out of bed in the morning and has them skipping into work.

So what creates energy in a fellow human? Energy is created when you know what you do and the value of how it fits in the bigger picture. It’s created when you are challenged and supported to achieve more than you thought possible. It’s also created when you have been told you’ve done a great job and have been appreciated for being you.

When was the last time that happened to you?

Drain the energy of your people and apathy appears. Apathy kills! It slowly kills the human spirit and more recently some organisations have been found criminally negligent for creating “a culture of apathy”. We owe it to humans and our society to create organisations that create a powerful sense of meaning and value in the work they do and impact it has in our world.

Make sure there is a compelling narrative around what each person does and why it’s valued.

Humans are wired to connect.

Daniel Goleman

Create connections that count

In a world where we are moving at ‘warp speed’ we seem to be constantly in contact with others, but let’s not mistake contact for connection. It staggers and saddens me in equal measure how many couples I see at a restaurant tables, both engrossed in their mobile phone. Our need to connect has never been filled with so many ways in which to do so, and yet all these technology enhanced means of connecting are ‘nutritionally light’ and will never replace human contact.

Business is done through relationships and relationships are built on conversation.

The five year old who (hopefully) doesn’t have a mobile phone, that went into primary school on their first day, was not interested in being taught, their first priority was to make friends. This sense of belonging never leaves us. Humans leave people, they do not leave organisations.

Research and the social sciences are telling us that in organisations where connections are deliberately built, have a higher level of social belonging and learning which helps them to adapt quickly to the ever changing and challenging landscape of the markets they operate in.

Build strong communities of practice within your organisation where learning can be shared.

Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can't be faked.

Peter Guber

“We are all individuals” – Life of Brian

Too many people work in organisations where they become less of who they really are because they are conditioned to believe they need to become some one else, for whom they are not.

Ideally an organisation (which is effectively a group of people) should tolerate differences and in my experience do within the constraints of what is the ‘norm around here’. The challenge is that if you are outside the ‘norm’ you have to either comply and adapt, or face exclusion, and in my experience many organisations sadly exclude and or make people comply. If you think about where you work, there are likely to be some people who have more of a voice and who are listened to more than others.

Diversity in too many organisations is therefore more a policy, rather than an actual reality.

We all need to be heard and validated for who we are. Anyone who is not heard and validated fully in your organisation is potentially an untapped source of genius.

Find ways in which to bring the unheard to the table.

Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.

Jacqueline Woodson

Change a ‘space’ into a ‘pause’

We are living in a world where really hearing and understanding each other is becoming increasingly more difficult. Its rather strange really! It seems that because we have more ways in which we can connect, that in itself distracts us from really hearing another. How many of us have been distracted with emails while on teleconferences, or been reading or listening to an article while talking via Skype?

We are brought up to believe that ‘attention seeking’ is a negative. The truth is we are all attention seekers and it’s no bad thing as it’s through others that our experience of the world in enriched. My fear is that with the multitude of ways in which we can listen to others, it will connect us only to those who hold similar views and or will limit how much we hear others through the constant barrage of technological distraction.

Organisations where people thrive, listen to each other. Giving people attention creates greater understanding, empathy and higher levels of engagement. Don’t just give people ‘space’ to be heard, provide a ‘pause’ where you can sit and really be with that person to understand what is going on for them.

Isolate time for when you can be fully with people and listen for what you can hear.

“Self assurance is a far greater predictor of higher performance than self awareness”

Marcus Buckingham

Have people do more of what their good at

When we were being educated it was about becoming better at what we were not good at. Remember in the reports“could do better” - or was that just me?

I believe this still permeates in organisations today in how we manage a persons performance. Constantly focusing on the ‘could do betters’ leads people to feel inadequate, under valued and stressed. Don’t get me wrong, if it is a‘show stopper’ i.e. something they must do to a desired level, then it needs to be addressed.

Research is indicating that in organisations where people thrive, there seems to be three questions that set the agenda for any formal or informal performance review between manager and employee, these are:

• what have you enjoyed and would like to do more of?

• what could you do even better?

• how can I help?

Encourage regular conversations around these three questions and note the difference in engagement and capability.

Perhaps the biggest admission of an inability to lead is to say or imply, “because I said so“. Bright, questioning

people, and they're the people you want, no longer have automatic deference to a position. They don't like being

told what to do.

Charles Handy

Trust people to do a good job

Despite evidence to the contrary, a greater majority of people come to work to do a good job!

In many organisations, the opinions, ideas, solutions and natural creativity is squandered quite ruthlessly by over bearing, control minded managers who haven’t really listened and think they know best.

Organisations where people and results thrive have a management approach that says “I may not have all the answers and therefore I need to listen, support and trust my people to do their best”. This empowering approach releases more intellectual capital, as well as energy and commitment to do the right thing. The manager is their to simply guide, support, challenge and hold them to account.

People thrive in places where they are trusted to do a good job. Trust your people.

I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses, made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently…

this business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.

Anita Roddick

Focus on what really matters

Capability determines Performance, which influences whether Goals are achieved and therefore Targets met, which ultimately determines whether a business ‘wins’ by gaining the right Results. Simple really!

How capable and willing are your people to do what counts everyday? Once you have set the strategy, that’s really the only question that matters if you want to win.

We all too often still associate capability with training and training to a cost, and yet the art of learning is sadly overlooked. Learning can be very cheap, highly valuable and often is the difference between a mediocre organisation and one that excels.

ResultsResultsTargetsTargetsGoalsGoalsPerformancePerformanceCapabilityCapability

Intention

During 35 years in industry I have been fortunate to work with some great organisations and some not so great. Through researching and developing methods and approaches to Leadership, Organisational Development and Human Performance, my intention is to create places that bring out the best in people.

It’s a simple truth; where people thrive, organisations win and communities flourish.

If this little booklet has got you thinking and you’d like to know more about how to bring this in to your place of work, so there is greater employee engagement, well being, performance and strategic success, then contact me at:

Office: +44 (0)7765 243639

Email: [email protected]

Thanks for reading.

Steve